Many businesses provide support centers to handle customer inquiries for their products or services. Support may be provided across different contact channels, such as telephone, email, electronic chat, etc. The number of customer inquiries per day (or other unit of time) is referred to as the contact volume. In some businesses the contact volume remains fairly constant over the course of a season. In other businesses the contact volume varies significantly at different times during the season.
In a seasonal business in which the contact volume varies throughout the season it is desirable to adjust staffing resources or other resources in accordance with the contact volume. For example, when the contact volume is high it is sometimes desirable to increase the number of support staff in order to provide a satisfactory service experience for customers. When the contact volume is low it is sometimes desirable to decrease the number of support staff in order to decrease staffing expenditures.
In businesses that exhibit a high degree of seasonality or unpredictability in contact volume during the season, planning for resource adjustments over the course of the season is a particularly difficult problem. For example, tax businesses, such as businesses that provide tax software products or other tax products or services, exhibit a high degree of variability in contact volume due to various factors that influence when customers prepare their tax returns. For example, natural disasters or policy changes by the IRS can affect the times at which significant numbers of people prepare their tax returns, and thus change the contact volume seen by a tax business.